Bernard I of Embrun

Bernard I was archbishop of Embrun in Provence from 810 to 825 or 826. He is regarded as a locally venerated saint of the Catholic Church. Little is known about his pastorate, because most of the documents of that time were destroyed in the repeated ravages of Provence by the Spanish Moors, from the eighth century to the first third of the tenth.

Bernard is mentioned in the old diptychs of the archdiocese of Embrun as the successor of Saint Marcellus. It is supposed that he ascended the throne in 810. The testament of the emperor Charlemagne dates from the end of 811, in which he ordered that after his death a part of his property be given to the twenty-⁠one archdioceses of the Frankish state, among them that of Embrun. With the funds received after Charlemagne's death, Bernard built a new cathedral, called Notre-⁠Dame du Réal. This is stated in the bull of Pope Victor II of 1057 and in a charter of the king of France, Charles VIII, of 1490.

Church traditions give some other reports about the life of Bernard I, but historians consider that most of them are not credible. In the diptychs he is called a saint, but the day of his commemoration is not given. Bernard died in 825 or 826. His successor on the see of Embrun was Agericus.